CANMORE – A growing number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at Lawrence Grassi Middle School could lead to the Canmore school being temporarily shut down.
In a Dec. 7 letter, principal Natasha Miles wrote the past 12 days have had several COVID-19 cases be confirmed across all grades in the school.
She noted Lawrence Grassi Middle School (LGMS) is on the Alberta Health Services (AHS) school outbreak alert list and the past two weeks have seen more reported cases than it had in all of 2020-21.
“If the number of cases reaches 10 per cent of the student population in a class or across the school, we would be facing the closure of a class or the entire school,” she wrote in her letter.
Miles emphasized the safety of students and staff is a top priority and the school is asking people to continue to use the AHS daily checklist.
According to the AHS outbreak site, Alpenglow Community School is under an alert due to two to nine confirmed cases in the past 14 days.
The total number of schools on the AHS outbreak site is 129, as of Tuesday (Dec. 7).
An outbreak is declared when there are 10 or more cases at a school in the previous 14 days.
The letter from Miles requested parents with students who were showing any COVID-19 symptoms, or if they have tested positive to keep them at home, as well as any siblings until they have a negative test.
“Thank you to all the families who have informed us of the results of tests in a timely manner," said Miles in the letter.
In Canmore, there were a total of 26 active cases community-wide as of Dec. 7.
In the MD of Bighorn, which includes Harvie Heights, Exshaw, Lac Des Arcs and Morley at Stoney Nakoda, there are 11 active cases. In Banff and Lake Louise, there were two active cases.
Province-wide, there were 4,105 active cases as of Dec. 7. There were 373 people in hospital, including 76 in intensive care units.
